William klein



(No Model.)

W. KLEIN. GOFFIN HANDLE.

Patented May 12, 1896.

,PHOTOLITHQWASHINGTONYDC ihviinn STATES ATENT FFICEQ \VILLIAM KLEIN, OF THOMPSONVILLE, CONNECTICUT, ASSIGNOR TO THE XVESTFIETJD PLATE COMPANY, OF SAME PLACE.

COFFINV-HANDLE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 559,898, dated May 12, 1896.

Application filed August 9,1895. Serial No. 558,733. (No model.)

(0% whom, it may concern.-

Be it known that I, \VILLIAM KLEIN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Thompsonville, in the county of Hartford and State of Connecticut, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Coffin-Handles, of which the following is a specification.

The invention relates to the construction of casket or coffin handles; and the object is to provide a simple, light, and cheap handle which can be made very strong to insure against any possibility of accidental breaking when in use without any unsightly or expensive additional strengthening-brace or supplemental handle.

To this end the invention resides in details of the construction of such a handle having a pair of thin steel lugs provided for attaching the parts to the side of the coffin with orn amental eseutcheon-plates covering the lugs, a pair of thin steel arms hinged to the lugs in such manner as to utilize their greatest strength, with ornamental sheathing of light weight covering and stiffening the arms and lugs, and ahand-bar encircled by portions of the arms, as more particularly hereinafter described, and pointed out in the claim.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a side view of the handle. Fig. 2 is an enlarged plan of one of the escutcheonplates and sheathed arms. Fig. 3 is a longitudinal section through one of the arms and escutcheon-plates. Fig. ii: is a transverse section of one of the arms. Fig. shows a side and top view of one of the arms. Fig. 6 shows a side and top view of one of the lugs, and Fig. 7 shows one of the lugs opened out as before it is bent to shape.

In the views, 1 indicates the ham d-bar, which is usually formed of a suitable piece of tubing desirably ornamented with any approp riate design. This hand-bar is held by a pair of arms 2, which are stamped or cut to shape from a flat piece of thin sheetsteel with perforations that are adapted to encircle and hold the bar, with perforations 4 for the hinging-pivots, and with hooks or shoulders 5 for forming stops to limit the swinging movement of the arms when the handle is in place on the coflin. Over the front of these arms 2 and partially surrounding the hand-bar about the arms is cast a thin and light sheathing 6 of soft metal, which can be readily given an attractive design and a suitable plating. This soft-metal sheathing is east along the outer edges of the arms and embeds narrow portions of the outside edges of the thin sheetsteel arms and thus hold the thin arms rigid and stiff against bending or springing sidewise with the use of a small amount of soft metal, Figs. 3 and 4.

The lugs 7 are stamped or cut to shape of thin sheetsteel in the form shown in Fig. 7, with perforations for the arm-hinging pivots and for the screws that are to attach the handle to the casket. These sheet-metal pieces after having been stamped are doubled together and the side lugs S with the screw-perforations are bent outward, which causes the portions with the pivot-perforations to come opposite each other, forming slots between them to receive and guide the arms, and with stopping-shoulders 9 for the abutment of the shoulders 5 on the ends of the arms. Then the pivot-pins are driven through the perforations in the lugs and the arms, the arms are guided in their swinging movement by the side walls of the slots between the two portions of the bent sheet-metal lugs. This ar rangement for holding the arms, together with the embedding of the upper edges in the soft-metal sheath, insures that the arms will not spring, bend, or buckle sidewise when they are being used.

The escutcheon-plates 10, of suitable design, are cast of soft metal about the lugs, so as to cover and hold the lugs and provide a desirable finish. Screw-perforations 11 are made through the escutcheon-plates coincident with the screw-perforations through the side parts 8 of the lugs, so that the holdingscrews may readily be inserted and screwed into the side of the coffin from the outside. Ears 12 are formed on the escutcheon-plates or sheathing for the lugs each side of the parts of the lugs that are perforated by the hinging-pivots, and the pivots are thrust through these ears and the lugs when the thin arms are to be held in place.

\Vith this construction the arms, which are light, simple, and cheap and suitably ornamental, are very stiff and strong, for the thin steel plates which are stamped to shape to form them are disposed edgewise to the strains or lifting on the handle, so as to utilize their greatest strengthnvhile the soft-metal sheathing retains the thin edgewise-placed arms in such a manner as to prevent them from bending, buckling, or breaking under twists or sidewise strains, which of course are not as great as the lifting strains that come upon the handle when in use. The arms are also further stiifened against bending or buckling by the walls of the slots between the steel parts of the lugs to which the arms are hinged and the lugs are easily and cheaply formed to shape so as to be ornamental and yet withstand all necessary strains. The metal of the lugs is so disposed as to give great strength in the line of lift of the handle, and these parts are incased in the cast soft ornamental metal in such manner as to be stiffened and prevented from buckling or breaking under any undue strains or twists. The holdingscrews pass through the steel lugs, and thus the entire handle, which is really formed of thin sheet-steel, placed edgewise to the normal strains and backed against unusual sidewise twists or strains by the soft ornamental portions of the handle, can be very securely attached to the side of the coffin, so that there is no danger of pulling away from the cofiin or breaking off and letting the cofiin down.

I am fully aware that it is not new to provide a hard-metal supplemental brace or stiffening-reinforce for a soft-metal casket-handle, and such I do not broadly claim; but

lVhat I claim as my invention is- A coffin-handle, consisting of a hand-bar, a pair of thin, hard-metal arms placed edgewise to the lines of normal lifting strain with parts encircling the hand-bar, a hollow, softmetal sheathing east along a narrow portion of the outer edges of the arms to prevent the arms from bending sidewise, and to provide ornamentation, sheet-metal plates of thin, hard metal doubled upon themselves so as to form narrow sockets between the walls of the bent portions which embrace the ends of the arms and having laterally-projecting portions with screw-perforations, the bent portions forming abutments for limiting the opening movement of the arms, and soft-metal escutcheon-plates cast over the lugs and about the laterally-projecting perforated portions of the lugs, substantially as specified.

\VILLIAM KLEIN. Vitnesses:

ALBERT ll. MATHEwsoN, HARRY R. *ILLIAns. 

